


Sawla-Hlytta

by DachOsmin



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Mordor, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Captivity, Enemies to Lovers, Identity Porn, M/M, Prisoner of War, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-19 11:57:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22710475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DachOsmin/pseuds/DachOsmin
Summary: The name of Faramir’s soulmate appeared on his forearm at midnight on his twelfth birthday, in the winter of the twenty-third year of Gondor’s war with the Horselords.
Relationships: Éomer Éadig/Faramir (Son of Denethor II)
Comments: 49
Kudos: 381
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Sawla-Hlytta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greygerbil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/gifts).



The name of Faramir’s soulmate appeared on his forearm at midnight on his twelfth birthday, in the winter of the twenty-third year of Gondor’s war with the Horselords.

He had spent the day in breathless anticipation, too excited to eat or attend to his lessons, peering out the windows of the citadel at the darkening sky whenever he had a spare moment. Boromir had laughed with all the self-assured wisdom of his seventeen years. “Not to worry,” he had said, clapping a hand on Faramir’s shoulder. “The moon will rise soon enough.”

Boromir was right of course, but it still felt like a lifetime. Faramir whiled away the hours by staring into space, dreaming of the name that would appear on his arm. Would it belong to a noble lady of the city, with golden hair and laughing eyes? He could almost picture her standing on the ramparts at his side, the two of them bathed in sunlight and buffeted by the high winds come down from the mountains. Or perhaps the name would belong to no maiden at all, but instead a brave knight? He imagined them swearing their swords to each other and striking out into the wilds to have adventures together. They would fight fell beasts, and sleep curled together under strange stars.

Maiden or knight, Faramir hoped that his soul mate would find him pleasing, would be honored to have Faramir’s own name inked into their skin. He wasn’t much to look at, but Boromir promised him he had yet to come into his full height. And he had some skill with a blade and a lute; that had to count for something.

As soon as the moon had reached its zenith he was running out of his chambers, down the steps and out into the chill night air. His father was waiting by the trunk of the white tree; the bark glowed eerily in the moonlight. Faramir joined him, willing his limbs to stillness. He would not embarrass himself on this night of all nights. “I am honored by your presence, father,” he said, just as Boromir had told him to.

His father nodded. “Proceed,” he said gruffly. His coolness would have hurt, but tonight nothing could trouble Faramir. Soon, oh so soon, he would know the name of his other half, the soul chosen to complete his own!

Faramir yanked his sleeve up to bare the pale skin of his forearm, cast a milky blue by the moonlight beating down through the shadows of the tree branches. He extended his arm before him, wrist up, fingers balled in a tight fist.

At first nothing happened. He waited. The seconds ticked by. He began to feel the chill of the air in his nose and ear tips; he had been too excited to don a hat or gloves. What if nothing happened? What if he was broken; what if the skin on his arm stayed bare?

But then an inky blackness began spreading over the swell of his forearm, like a stroke from an invisible pen, and Faramir exhaled in a single guttering breath.

The strokes came slow, and then faster. Harsh markings, one by one, inked darkly into his skin. He bit his lip, waiting to read them, waiting to _know_. But then it was done, and he could no more read the name than he could read the runnels carved by worms in rotten wood.

“Well, boy?”

Hesitantly, he tilted his arm to his father. Perhaps it was an older script, used by the men in Dol Amroth or Lossarnach. His father would know; his father was very wise.

His father leaned in, frowning—and then something soured on his face.

Faramir opened his mouth to speak, but his father was already turning away, something harsh and ugly in the twist of his mouth. “Cover it,” he snapped as he strode away, back to the citadel. “Let no one see it.”

Faramir stayed a moment longer in the dark and the cold. Hesitantly, ever so hesitantly, he traced the lines of his soulmate’s name, somehow afraid they would burn him. But they did not; there was only warm skin beneath the pads of his fingers.

***

The citadel had a marvelous archive, and Faramir’s tutors were very obliging when he suddenly evinced an interest in epigraphy. It didn’t take much digging to discover the origin of the script on his arm, and it was easier still to understand why his father now looked at him with bitter disappointment. He was marked with the letters of the enemy. His soulmate was one of the savage horsemen that had rained terror on Gondor’s borders, burning its crops and killing its people.

He’d had no say in the matter, but he still felt the guilt of it in the pit of his stomach. Treachery had been lurking within him, was now branded onto his body. The sight of the name made his throat constrict. It was intolerable.

A few days after the markings appeared, he begged off his lessons for the day and enlisted Boromir to take him to the marketplace. They rode through the lower circles of the city in silence, and he did his best to ignore Boromir’s concerned gaze as he picked out an armbrace from a merchant that specialized in their production. “It’s best if you try it on before you buy it,” the man said as he picked out one cut from woad-dyed leather, but Faramir shook his head so fast he felt dizzy for a moment. The merchant and Boromir shared a look at that, which Faramir also ignored. He paid the merchant’s price and tucked the brace into his cloak pocket.

“It’s common enough to be disappointed at first,” Boromir said quietly as they rode back to the citadel. “But this was meant to be. No matter who it is, they were made to be by your side, and you by theirs.” There was a wistful look in his brother’s eyes, and not for the first time Faramir wondered what name hid beneath his brother’s own armbrace.

He wanted to say something. He wanted to pull up his sleeve right then and there. But all he could think of was the way his father had looked at him, with grim shame and dark suspicion. He couldn’t bear it, to see the same look in Boromir’s eyes.

With a squeeze of his knees he urged his horse into a canter, and didn’t look back to see if Boromir followed.

Once back at the citadel, he locked himself in his room and buckled the brace over the marks on his arm. He resolved to keep them covered, even when he slept. And if on moon-filled nights he bared his skin to the air and traced his soulmate’s name, wondering if there was someone out on the steppes tracing his own name, no one had to know.

***

Faramir grew up in his father’s image and his brother’s shadow.

He became a ranger of the guard, then a captain. None of his men knew the truth of his marks, but Faramir could always feel his father’s eyes on his back, waiting for a slip of loyalty, for any sign that Faramir owed more allegiance to the name on his skin than the blood in his veins. It made him fight twice as hard, push himself twice as far—anything to convince Denethor that it was to this city, to these people, that he owed his allegiance.

He killed horsemen in droves, and lay awake in his bedroll after the battles wondering if he had murdered his other half without ever knowing it.

As the years went by, he stopped removing his brace and did his best to forget there was skin beneath it at all. He could not choose the identity of his soulmate, but he could choose how he responded to it.

And then, in the early spring of Faramir’s twenty fifth year, Osgiliath fell to the horselords.

***

Denethor called him before the throne the morning after the reports came in. It was a simple summons with no explanation attached, but Faramir knew, deep down, what his father would ask of him.

He took his time donning his tabard and armor, lingering in his quarters, eyes catching on small things that he had not looked at in an age. The toy sword Boromir had gifted him on his tenth birthday. The stack of books on his desk that he had meant to read. The abandoned bird’s nest he had found nestled in the branches of the white tree when he was a child. He said acknowledged each of them, one by one, and then left his rooms, closing the door quietly behind him. The catch of the hasp had an air of finality to it.

When he arrived in the throne room, it was empty save for his father.

Walking the length of the hall, his footfalls echoed off the marble like a dirge. He reached the throne and knelt; the floor was hard and cold beneath his knees. “My lord,” he said. "What would you have me do?"

His father was quiet for a moment. His eyes tracked from the white tree on Faramir’s tabard to the blue brace on his left arm. “Osgiliath must be retaken,” he said at last.

Faramir had read the reports, had seen the scouts’ grim counts of the enemy soldiers. He knew it was futile to protest, but for the sake of his men, he had to try. “My lord, Osgiliath is overrun.”

His father scowled. “Much must be risked in war. Do you defy your lord’s will?”

It was a neat trap that Denethor had set. If he protested, his father would drag subtext out into the open, accuse Faramir of the treachery that he had suspected all these years. There was nothing he could say. He bowed his head in acquiescence and defeat, and stood. “I will depart within the hour,” he murmured. “By your leave.”

A jerky nod was all the acknowledgement he got.

As he walked towards the doors a fierce yearning came over him for the days, almost now forgotten, when his father had looked at him and not seen a traitor. He stopped. “If I should return, think better of me, father.”

Denethor looked away. “That will depend on the manner of your return.”

***

Boromir intercepted him as he made his way to the stables. His knuckles were white, and there was a wildness in his eyes. “Faramir, this is madness. Father—"

Faramir did not slow his pace. “I go of my own volition.”

Boromir scoffed. “You cannot think this scheme has any chance of succeeding.”

Of course he didn’t, but that was beside the point. “And you cannot tell me what I can and cannot do. I am a man grown.”

Boromir pressed his lips into a thin line. “I will go in your stead.”

Faramir whirled around to glare at him. “No! The people need you! You will need to lead them, after father. Keep them safe for me. Keep this city safe for me.”

“Stay,” Boromir said, and Faramir willed himself to ignore the pain in his brother’s voice. “Stay, and we will keep it safe together.”

“I cannot. This is my path.”

“You will die,” Boromir said, his voice breaking.

“Then I will die with honor.” He took a deep breath. “Remember today, big brother,” he said. “Remember that I love you.” He leaned in to press a kiss to Boromir’s cheek, and pretended that he did not see his brother’s tears.

***

A calm descended upon him as he rode to the battle. He fixated on the little things: sunlight gleaming on armor, the beat of the horses’ hooves, the snap of banners in the breeze.

At first the Rohirrim looked like nothing but smudges on the horizon. But as Faramir and his men rode closer, the mass grew and grew, until Faramir could see the size of the hostile force, their spears thick as a forest. He assessed the relative size of their forces, determined that Gondor was vastly outnumbered, and filed the knowledge away. It didn’t change anything. He had his orders.

He held his sword high and unleashed a battle cry, picked up by his men and carried down the line of the charge.

Closer, closer, closer—

And the battle was joined.

Faramir had enjoyed songs of war when he was small. He would curl up at Boromir’s side and listen, wide eyed, as the court minstrels used words and chords to conjure up battles of ages past. But of course, war was not a song.

The two armies crashed together in a maelstrom of steel and screaming horses. Faramir lashed his sword towards the first enemy he encountered, smiling with grim satisfaction as the edge took the man in the throat.

He let instinct take over, then, lost himself to the rhythm of the battle. He fought for his life, stabbing and slashing and parrying for what could have been days.

As he slew yet another foe and none stepped up to take his place, he thought for a moment that perhaps they had won; perhaps there were no more horsemen left.

But then he looked around, and realized that there were no men wearing Gondor’s colors in sight. He was surrounded by the enemy.

Four horsemen were watching him; he could see nothing of their faces but the gleam of their eyes within their helmets.

“Dismount,” said the tallest of the four.

Recklessness filled him. He would not surrender in this moment. He would die with honor, as Boromir would have, had their places been reversed.

He bared his teeth and lunged forward in the saddle, striking his sword at the closest of the horsemen. He aimed for the heart, but the horseman’s mare danced nimbly away, and the blow glanced off the chainmail covering his ribs instead.

He had no time to land a second strike; his only warning was a clink of a bridle behind him, far too close. He whirled around but it was already too late; hands were on him, shoving him from the saddle. His sword flew from his grip, and there was a moment of jarring vertigo as the ground rushed towards him and then he was slamming into the dirt, hissing at the pain of it as the wind was knocked out of him.

His horse whinnied, but the sound seemed so very far away. He forced himself to breath through the pain; there was no time to indulge in it, not when death was so close.

Gritting his teeth, he stumbled to his feet. He expected a spear-thrust at any moment, but the horsemen were motionless as he unsheathed his knife with a rasp and brandished it with shaking hands. It was a trifling thing, of course. A knife had no reach against a mounted spearman; the best he could do was lame one of their horses before they hacked him to pieces.

With a flick of the reins, the horseman facing Faramir urged his horse to take a step closer. Faramir eyed the man. He had to be their leader: he wore a fearsome helmet chased in gold and crowned with a plume of pale horsehair.

The man brought his spear down towards Faramir in a lazy thrust; Faramir shoved it away with his knife.

“Lay down your dirk,” the rider said. His Westron was rough but serviceable, and he projected a quiet air of command.

“It is a poor warrior that abandons his weapon,” Faramir replied.

The spear moved fast as lightning, batting the knife from his hand. Before Faramir could react, it swung back towards his neck. He tensed, waiting for pain, but the spear tip stopped at the hollow of his throat, resting just above the lip of his breast plate. The steel was cold against his skin; he could feel it pressing wickedly down with each ragged breath he took. It would be easy, so easy, for the horseman to lean forward on the spear and skewer Faramir neatly through the neck.

“Only those without honor kill unarmed men,” he said, marveling at how steady his voice sounded.

A snort. “And only those without wisdom goad armed men.”

He closed his eyes. “Kill me and be done with it, then.”

The spear moved to tap at the crest on Faramir’s helm. “Unless I miss my mark, you’re the captain. Gondor pays good gold for prisoners.”

Faramir imagined what his father would do when he received the ransom request. Burn it, most likely. “I fear your luck has run out,” he said. “Gondor will not pay for me.”

The horseman stared at him for a moment through the slits in his helmet. “We shall have to see,” he finally said. “Garulf, bind his hands.”

***

Faramir did not resist as the horsemen disarmed him and lashed his hands together behind his back. There seemed to be no point in it, not now. He had already failed his city and his men. What was there left to do?

They leashed him like a hound and remounted, and then they were off, making him walk beside the horses. They led him away from the battlefield; he forced himself to look at the dead, memorizing the names and faces of the men that had fallen. There was Amath, who had a weakness for dicing in the lower circle ale-halls. An arrow bulged from his throat; his eyes were wide and unseeing. There was Tirin, who had two sweethearts that didn’t know of each other. A spear was planted firmly between the plates of his mail. Dead, all dead.

The bodies thinned, and then they were in open country again. He had thought they would take him to Osgiliath, but they turned north, towards the Riddermark.

Faramir walked and walked and walked. The horsemen ignored him, content to murmur among themselves in their own guttural tongue.

The hot sun beat down on the plates of his armor, until he felt he might boil. Beneath his mail he was drenched in sweat; it dripped down his face and stung at his eyes, and he could do nothing to wipe it away. A cut on his cheek bled sluggishly. The bindings on his wrists bit into his skin. Most of all, he was thirsty. He had not drunk since before the battle was joined, and now he found himself maddened by the thought of water.

The sun sank into the west, the sweat on his brow turned chill and clammy, and still, they walked. When a camp of white tents appeared on the horizon and the scent of cookfires smoking caught the breeze, he almost cried in relief.

As they approached the tents, one of the riders glanced back at him and asked what sounded like a question. Their leader looked back at Faramir and shook his head, murmuring something in response before riding away from the group.

Faramir stared dully up at the remaining riders. Let them kill him or spare him; he no longer had the energy left to care.

A second rider dismounted, and took Faramir’s leash in hand. He set off towards the tents, Faramir trailing along behind him.

They wended their way through the camp. It was massive, and teeming with soldiers and pages and camp followers, all of them staring at him with hostile eyes as he stumbled past. He was well and truly in the belly of the beast, now.

They stopped in front of a tent at the center of the camp, larger and of better make than most of the others. His jailer entered, pulling Faramir in after him.

The tent was well appointed: there was a cot piled high with thick furs, and across from it a stool and a folding desk strewn with ledgers. A jeweled goblet sat on a small table next to the cot, filled to the brim. The floor was covered with a rug, and a lantern on the desk cast the tent with soft amber light.

As Faramir looked around, the horseman shoved him hard on the shoulder so that his knees buckled and he fell to the ground with a curse. He was manhandled into a kneeling position, and then his ankles were being tied together so that he had no way to stand and run.

And then the soldier left.

Faramir waited, alone in the tent. And waited. And waited. The position was agony on his knees and shoulders. His wrists burned from the pull of the ropes. His mouth was bone dry. Could he perhaps reach the goblet? But no, he could barely move, much less drink without spilling. He thought to shout for mercy; was this what they had wanted? For him to beg, abase himself? But if he called out, what horrors might await him? There were stories about what the horsemen did to their captives…

He closed his eyes and drifted, caught between the terror and the boredom, the pain and the thirst.

When the tent flap finally rustled behind him, he found he had not the strength left to lift his head. “I would bid you kill me outright,” he rasped. “I’ll not betray my people.”

A pause. “I had not expected that you would.” Soft footfalls on the carpet, and then the leader of the horsemen was standing before him. He reached up and removed his helmet, tucking it under his arm before shaking out his golden hair. He was a young man, of an age with Faramir or somewhat younger still. He had a proud face, and fair features. As Faramir watched he set his helmet on his desk and picked up the goblet, raising it to his lips. He drank deeply, the sweat on his throat glistening in the lamplight as he swallowed.

Faramir could have wept, if he’d had the water left in him. Without meaning to, a moan broke from his lips.

The man paused mid sip.

Faramir tensed, expecting scorn—but instead the man reached down to him, steadying his chin with one hand and placing the edge of the goblet against his lips with the other. His skin was rough, but his hands were gentle. He tilted the goblet up slightly so that Faramir could drink; it should have felt humiliating, degrading, but all Faramir could muster was relief as sweet water filled his mouth, trickled down his throat, filled his belly.

When he had drunk his fill, he realized the horselord was staring at him. Faramir pulled away. Now the torture would begin.

“My name is Éomer, Marshall of the Riddermark.”

Faramir stayed silent.

At length, Éomer snorted and sat down on the stool, regarding him with something like mirth. “It’s a curious thing. I have just spoken to the other prisoners from your company. I asked them the name of their commander.”

Faramir’s first instinct was overwhelming relief. There were others; not all his men had died in the battle. But next came a stab of fear. If the Rohirrim learned who he was, they would use him as a weapon against Gondor. His father might not love him, but the nobles and the councilors would insist on ransoming him. And the horselords would ask a princely sum indeed. How many acres of hard-fought land would be bought with Faramir’s life?

He would have died rather than let his captors know his name. But it was too late. He hung his head and waited. And waited. He looked up.

The man—Éomer, his name was Éomer—was looking at him, an odd expression on his face. “I asked your men for your name,” he repeated. “But it was the oddest thing: they all gave different answers.”

“You’d best result to torture, then,” Faramir said. For I won’t tell you. I won’t have my family put to penury for my own failure. There, let him think Faramir the scion of some petty noble house, fallen on hard times with little gold to spare.

Éomer’s lips twisted in scorn. “We aren’t like you, to do such things. We are men of honor.”

Faramir almost spoke then, to remind him of the burning of Anorien, the taking of Osgiliath, and all the other atrocities that hung heavy between their two peoples, but he stayed quiet. It seemed unwise to antagonize the man that held Faramir’s life in his hands.

Éomer must have recognized this; he shook his head with a rueful sigh. “Very well then.” He paused, and something undecipherable flitted across his face. “I have one more question for you, my mystery man. Can you read?”

Faramir hesitated, then nodded. Most any noble son had tutors; the mere fact that he could read wouldn’t give him away.

Éomer opened the clasp of a pouch tied to his belt and withdrew a crumpled piece of parchment. He smoothed it out on his knee, and then held it out towards Faramir. “What does this say?”

The word was hard to read, of the sort drawn by a child copying the curves of letters with no understanding of their underlying meaning. Faramir puzzled at it for a second, and then looked up sharply before he could stop himself.

Éomer was watching him intently. “You can read it, then.”

Was this a trick? “Yes,” he said, mouth dry.

“What,” Éomer asked, “does it say?”

“Faramir,” he whispered, and waited for the laugh of triumph.

But Éomer only tilted his head. “A man’s name? Or a woman’s?”

“A man’s. A—a common name, my lord.” Because it was given in honor of the steward’s son, he didn’t add.

“Do you know anyone that goes by this name?”

Faramir closed his eyes and let relief wash over him like moonlight. “No.”

***

It was only in the aftermath, after Éomer had called for another soldier to trundle Faramir off to a makeshift prison pen, that the weight of what had happened crashed over him.

He had been captured. He was in the grips of the enemy. And yet, somehow all of that paled in comparison to the parchment in Éomer’s hand.

The scrap had been old, and well folded. Éomer had carried it with him for a long time.

Perhaps it was a name from one of his womenfolk relatives, carried to the front where they couldn’t follow. Or else it was copied off the body of a dead comrade and carried as the answer to a dying promise.

But even as he considered these possibilities, his heart knew them for lies. Éomer had copied those letters from his own body, and carried them close all these years.

Faramir’s heart felt strange, as if he had drunk deep from a potent elixir that was one part terror, one part giddy elation, and one part utter despair. He had met his soulmate. He had looked upon the face of the man who was meant to complete him. And he couldn’t tell him, for it would mean the downfall of his people if he did.

***

The Rohirrim broke camp the next morning at dawn, and Faramir was once again tied at the wrists and made to walk beside the horses. His keeper was a sullen rider he did not recognize; he rebuffed Faramir’s attempts at conversation with steely silence. Perhaps he spoke no Westron, or else he was bitter at being made to play the nursemaid.

Faramir kept his eyes peeled for other prisoners as they traveled but saw none. As the sun climbed in the sky the heat of the day once again became unbearable, and when they finally made camp in the early evening, he was ready to collapse on the grass. One of the riders hammered a stake into the ground; his keeper tied him to it and left him there. But as soon as he slid to his knees another glowering warrior appeared and gestured for him to stand. “The marshal has sent for you,” he grumbled.

Faramir followed the man despite his misgivings. What manner of interrogation awaited him today? Éomer would try to beat his name out of him, perhaps.

Visions of torture and villainy danced through his head as they made their way to Éomer’s tent; when his escort pulled the tent flap back and gestured for him to enter Faramir resolved to face whatever torments lay inside with courage.

And so he was utterly unprepared when he stepped inside to find Éomer hovering over a low table laden heavy with food and drink.

He stopped. Stared.

Éomer set down the apple he was carving and acknowledged Faramir with a dignified nod. “Thank you for joining me this evening,” he said, and gestured for Faramir to take a seat at one of the two stools bracketing the table.

Faramir refrained from pointing out that he had absolutely no say in what he did with his time. “It is difficult to sit with bound hands, my lord.”

Éomer tilted his head to regard Faramir. “Do you give me your word that you will not try to flee if I release you?”

“Do you trust the word of a knight of Gondor?”

“No,” Éomer said with a shrug. “But I trust you care too much for your men to jeopardize their safety with ill-conceived heroics.” And with that he stepped around the table and drew his knife.

Faramir tensed as the blade neared his hands, but Éomer was true to his word: he cut through the rope binding his wrists with a practiced motion before resheathing it and returning to the table.

Faramir massaged at his wrists as he sat down; the ropes had bit into the skin, leaving it red and angry. The brace covering his soul mark had been pushed down by the ropes, he adjusted it slightly.

When he looked up, Éomer was watching him. “Have you found them then, your other half?

He brought his arm down beneath the table, hiding the brace from view. “No.”

“More’s the pity. They are lucky, whoever they are.”

Faramir looked at him sharply, but Éomer was already busying himself with the food. It was simple fare, but abundant and hearty, and Faramir found his mouth water as he took it all in. There were golden apples and links of spiced sausage, cuts of hard white cheese and salted fish.

Faramir hesitated: what if it were poisoned? But no, that would be ridiculous. Éomer had him at his mercy, he could run Faramir through any time he liked. And somehow it seemed unlike Éomer anyway; Faramir got the sense that he would never stoop to poison or a knife in the back.

He grabbed a goblet of wine and drunk deep, savoring the bitter sweetness on his tongue. When he had swallowed his fill, he licked his lips clean. As he set the goblet down, he realized Éomer was staring at him.

Had he done something wrong? “If I have offended you, my lord, I beg you to let me know.”

Éomer blinked and shook his head. “No. I was merely… thinking.”

Before Faramir could ask what had captured his thoughts, Éomer changed the subject. “Tell me, what do men of Gondor like to drink?”

The conversation was light and lively; on more than one occasion Faramir found himself laughing. It was as if he had been transported to some strange mirror-world, where their peoples were not at war. It was, strange to say, not an unpleasant evening.

***

The days that followed went by the same pattern. Faramir’s daylight hours were filled with grueling marches, and his nights were spent in the Marshall’s tent, eating at his table. Éomer seemed to delight in watching Faramir, as if he were some rare creature from far away. It was a strange existence; Faramir sometimes wondered if he were dreaming.

One night, Éomer served him a rich mead out of his own jeweled goblet, and Faramir reveled in the taste even as he knew that marching the next morning would be hell.

“We sent a letter to your people, telling them that we held your company’s captain, and twelve of your men,” Éomer said after Faramir had drained his goblet. “Eight of the families sent coin to buy their freedom. He paused. “Yours was not among them.”

Pain swamped him: his father had abandoned him. Relief came next: Gondor would not be beggared for his safety. It was everything he had hoped for, and it cut him to the bone. “I suppose you’ll have to kill me after all, my lord.”

“Kill you—? No, don’t be silly. We will keep you and the other four as thralls.”

To spend the rest of his life as Éomer’s slave… “I would bid you,” he said, before he could help himself, “to release the other four. They come from poor families, through no fault of their own. I have a… friend that would pay you for their release.” It was not a lie, precisely. Boromir had an ample line of credit; he would pay the men’s ransoms if Faramir asked it of him.

Éomer snorted. “You lie, else your friend would pay for you as well. No, we both know you have nothing to offer me.”

Faramir thought of the way Éomer looked at him, how his eyes lingered during their nightly assignations. He took a deep breath. There were worse things, than to sacrifice oneself for one’s men. “But I do,” he heard himself saying. “I could give you that which you want.”

A sharply indrawn breath. “What—"

Faramir reached out to take hold of Éomer’s hand. Éomer’s skin felt hot beneath the pads of his fingers; Faramir could almost feel Éomer’s heartbeat through the contact. “I have seen the way your eyes dwell on me,” he murmured. “You want this. And I would go willingly.”

The moment hung between them. He felt hyperaware of the contact between them; when Éomer shivered, it was as if he felt it in his bones. What would it feel like to do more than hold hands?

Éomer wrenched himself away with a violence that made Faramir flinch. “You sell yourself too cheaply,” he said roughly.

Faramir refused to feel chastened by this. “The lives of my men are worth all the gold in Erebor, my lord,” he said mildly. “Surely you would do the same?”

Éomer did not answer. At length he sighed. “You sell yourself too cheaply,” he repeated. “And you dishonor me, to suggest that I could be so bought.”

His chance to save his men was slipping away. “My lord—"

But Éomer was already calling for his guards to take Faramir back out into the night.

***

The next morning, he woke to twin indignities. The first: a pounding headache no doubt brought on by the mead of the prior night. And the second: the memory of exactly what he had said, and how Éomer had responded. He couldn’t decide which was worse.

The horseman assigned to guard him for the day arrived while he was trying to spit out the foul taste in his mouth. “Up.”

Faramir winced at the volume of the man’s voice and managed to stumble to his feet on the second try.

His keeper looked down at him with ill-disguised disgust. “Truly, I don’t understand why we needed to keep you. Should’ve disposed of you with the rest.”

Disposed—? He looked at the man sharply. “I was told there were other prisoners.”

The man’s lips thinned. “Not anymore.”

But Éomer had said they weren’t to be harmed. He thought he might be sick. Only a few hours earlier he had feasted at his captor’s table, eating his food and drinking his wine. He had offered Éomer his _body._ His men… “What happened to them— to the others—"

His questions were met with a glare. “Come. We’re already late.”

The horror stayed with him all day. Had the Rohirrim truly killed all of his men? When the column stopped for the day and he was well and truly heartsick, and wanted nothing more than to curl up in the grass and sleep.

But as he sunk into the grass, he was once again summoned by the Marshall.

He looked frantically for signs of his men as he was escorted through the camp, but there was nothing. As his escort shoved him into Éomer’s tent, his anger bubbled over. “What have you done?” he snarled.

Éomer looked up from the ledger he was perusing, eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”

“Do not think to play with me,” Faramir bit out. “When last we spoke you gave me your word that my men would not be harmed.”

“And they have not been.”

“Your man let slip that there were none left save for me.”

“Ah. Yes. You are the only one left. Because I released the others.”

Faramir blinked. “You… released them?”

Éomer nodded. “On your promise that I would be compensated.”

Well. He had promised, hadn’t he? He’d made a reckless promise while full of drink, and Éomer was calling it in. He swallowed. He would abide by his oath, as befit a man of Gondor.

His steps were hesitant as he crossed the space between them and laid a hand on Éomer’s cheek. Éomer’s eyes had gone wide; he seemed all of a sudden like a wild hart frozen in the face of a hunter. With a quick breath for courage, Faramir leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss to Éomer’s lips.

Éomer pushed him gently away, though he made a sound like it pained him to do so. “On your promise that I would be compensated with gold,” he said.

“Oh,” Faramir said, and felt his face heat. He had been quite the fool, then.

Éomer didn’t seem angry. He gestured for Éomer to sit, and began to speak of his day, as if nothing strange had happened between them at all.

***

It was the sort of misunderstanding that should have made things awkward, yet it did not. The next night, Éomer sent for him as he always did, and they passed the evening drinking mead and telling each other stories of their childhood. As Éomer bid him good night, Faramir dared to hope that Éomer bore him no ill feelings.

He was thus unprepared for the night that followed.

When Faramir arrived that evening, Éomer sat in the middle of the tent, polishing his sword. His back was ramrod straight, his hands were steady as he dragged the whetstone against the edge of the blade. Every line of his body emanated fury.

Faramir stopped dead in his tracks. He swallowed. “My lord.”

Éomer ignored him at first, adding a few more strokes to the blade before setting the whetstone and sword down with an ominous clink. Finally, he deigned to look up at Faramir. “I sent a rider to your city with the captives I freed.” His voice was quiet, each word measured, and yet the tone of his voice made the hairs on Faramir’s neck stand up on end.

What had happened? Had his father seized the messenger, imprisoned him or killed him? “My lord, I—”

Éomer cut him off as if he hadn’t heard him. “He returned today. And told me the oddest thing.”

“Whatever he said—”

“He told me,” Éomer said, “that as he was leaving, he stopped at a tavern to quench his thirst before his journey. And as he drank, he heard a minstrel singing for coin.”

Where was Éomer going with this? “There are many minstrels in the lower city,” he hedged.

Éomer looked him dead in the eyes. “The song was a dirge for the marshal that fell in the assault on Osgiliath. The Steward’s son. _Faramir_.”

Faramir opened his mouth, closed it again.

“Do you deny it?”

Faramir closed his eyes. There was nothing he could say.

With a snarl, Éomer stood and paced the length of the tent like a caged beast. He stopped abruptly and kicked the chest at the foot of his bed with a savage curse. “Were you laughing, all this while? How clever, to trick me.”

“No, I—"

“By the stars,” Éomer whispered. He suddenly deflated, seeming ages older. “I could have left you to die. I could have killed you myself. And I never would have known.”

Faramir knew he should apologize. Faramir knew he had nothing to apologize for. Either way, he knew he had to say something. But the words stuck in his mouth, all he could do was look at the brace on Éomer’s left arm; it drew his gaze back and back and back. “Show me,” he whispered.

Éomer fumbled with the straps, and then he was dropping the leather to the ground and holding out his arm, and even amidst the shadows of the tent Faramir could make out his own cramped signature imprinted in the middle of Éomer’s forearm.

He stepped forward of his own accord, reached out. As he pressed a finger to the curl of the first letter, Éomer’s arm trembled beneath him.

“May I kiss you,” Éomer said, low and wanting, and oh, he looked so young, eyes wide in the dark.

No. Faramir was supposed to say no, that’s what his father would want him to say. What a true son of Gondor would say. He was not supposed to want this. He had never wanted anything so much as this. “Yes,” he whispered, mouth dry.

Éomer did not surge forward, or indeed move at all, at first. He stood stock-still, as if reeling from the thought that this was something he could have. And then he was reaching out, inch by inch, as if he were afraid that Faramir were a conjuring that would vanish were they to touch. One hand he pressed to the side of Faramir’s face, and with the other he cradled the back of Faramir’s head. Slowly he brought their lips together, close-mouthed and chaste.

It was Faramir that deepened the kiss, licking into Éomer’s mouth, forging blindly ahead. From there it was all open-mouthed desperation, kisses after kisses with no end or beginning. Faramir felt as if he were burning up; everything was reduced to the burn of stubble across his cheek, the quiet sounds Éomer made when he twisted his fingers in Éomer’s braids, the taste of salt and skin on his tongue.

As Faramir shuddered, Éomer sucked a claim of ownership into the line of his jaw, and another into the pillar of his neck. With a growl, Éomer pressed his thigh between Faramir’s legs so that he moaned and arched into the friction of it.

He had lain with soldiers before: on long marches they would huddle in each other’s bedrolls for furtive fumblings, teeth sunk in each other’s forearms to muffle their grunts and moans. It had felt nothing like this. This was incandescent and luxurious, and he reveled in it. He wanted to touch everything, feel everything. He wanted to drink down every cry, taste every inch of Éomer’s skin. He wanted to see Éomer’s face as he came, and know that he had wrought it.

Faramir’s hands scrabbled over Éomer’s back, pulling him closer, tangling in his hair, yanking their bodies together in a way that went straight to his cock. They rutted against each other like that, bucking into the friction and the heat.

Faramir was close, so close—

Éomer pulled away with supreme effort, and Faramir almost cried out at his absence. “No,” said Éomer. “I’ll not have my first time with my soulmate be like two boys fumbling in a stable.”

Faramir imagined Éomer fucking in a horse stall and promptly forgot how to speak. “Our boyhoods were very different,” he croaked.

Éomer paused, looking up at him with flushed cheeks. “You have lain with a man before, have you not?”

“I—yes,” he said. “With hands. Not with…” he trailed off, unable to say any more.

Éomer looked up at him. His eyes were dark behind the golden fall of his lashes. “I would take you inside of me, if you would wish it.”

Oh. _Oh._ “I would wish it,” he whispered.

A wolfish hungriness lit up in Éomer’s eyes that made Faramir’s toes curl. He spread a fur from the bed over the carpet. “Strip,” he said.

Faramir shucked off the rest of his clothing with no artistry or coquetry, too desperate to get Éomer’s hands on him again. One he was naked he looked back at Éomer for orders, feeling suddenly vulnerable.

Éomer had a filthy smile on his face, as if he liked what he saw very much indeed. He reached down to palm his breeches with an indolent smile. “Lie back,” he murmured.

Faramir did so, heart hammering in his chest. Éomer knelt by his feet, looking down at him as though Faramir were a feast laid out for him to devour. “I wish to kiss every inch of you,” he murmured, and proceeded to do just that. He conquered Faramir’s body like an advancing army. He started at Faramir’s left ankle, pressing a light kiss to the bone there.

Faramir shivered at the sudden chill of it. “You don’t have to—”

“Hush. I want to.” He trailed love-bites up the length of Faramir’s calf, pausing to press a kiss to the inside of his knee, and a scattering more up the line of his inner thigh. He paused a hairsbreadth away from Faramir’s cock, by now hard and leaking against his stomach, only to turn his head away with a wicked smile and leave another trail of kisses over the swell of Faramir’s hip and up the line of his ribs. He took Faramir’s nipple in his mouth, rolled it between his teeth, bit down. Faramir hissed, back arching off the furs.

“Patience,” Éomer murmured gravely, but his eyes were sparkling. He continued his conquest of kisses, laving his tongue over Faramir’s collarbone, sucking a bruise into the place where his neck met his shoulder as Faramir shuddered beneath him.

Finally, he brought Faramir’s forearm to his mouth and traced the lines of the soulmark with his tongue. As he reached the last letter he bit down lightly and sucked, and Faramir’s toes curled at the pleasure of it. “Will you have me die of want?” he managed to gasp.

Laughing, Éomer pulled away, and Faramir felt the sudden absence of his touch like a physical blow. “Patience,” Éomer said again, and then he was rummaging through the trunk at the end of his cot, emerging a moment later with a small pot of grease.

He stripped with brisk efficiency as Faramir watched. Oh, but his body was a marvel to look at: all lean muscle and golden skin. His cock was ruddy and hard, and as he swiped a dollop of grease onto his fingers and knelt by Faramir’s feet, it jumped in interest. He spread his legs wide, so that Faramir could see as he began to open himself up. Just one finger at first, and then two, until he was fucking himself in earnest on his fingers, his head thrown back and his mouth open as he panted in rhythm with his thrusts.

Faramir’s gut twisted in heady want; he reached down and took himself in hand, and Éomer hissed as he stroked himself. “I want you within me. Now.”

“Then take me,” Faramir whispered, mouth dry.

Éomer needed no other invitation. Surging forward, he positioned himself over Faramir’s cock and, inch by inch, sank down on it.

Faramir moaned. He was suddenly engulfed in tight, gripping heat; he was helpless to do anything but lie back and feel it.

Éomer was merciless, he did not stop in his conquest until he had taken everything there was to take, and their bodies were flush with each other.

And then, with an indolent snap of his hips, he began to move.

Oh, but it was perfect, like nothing he’d ever felt before. The grip of his own hand, or furtive fumblings in the bedrolls of another could not compare to this. Everything was reduced to the molten pleasure of Éomer fucking himself on his cock. He knotted his hands in the furs, his head thrown back, his hips stuttering up off the ground, anything to get more.

Éomer set a lazy pace at first, looking down at Faramir with a smirk, as if he knew the effect he was having. “The men of my country are famed for their riding,” he said gravely.

Faramir let out a laugh that turned into a moan as Éomer snapped his hips forward. “You are horrible.”

“You do not seem to mind overmuch,” Éomer replied. He sped up, set a punishing pace, milking every bit of pleasure that Faramir’s body had to give. And Faramir was helpless to do anything but lie, experience the utter pleasure of it. He whimpered, brought his forearm to his mouth, bit down on Éomer’s name to muffle his cries.

Éomer’s eyes darkened at that. He reached down to take himself in hand, thrust his hips, fucking his hand. His pace quickly turned erratic, and then his cock was pulsing and he was coming across Faramir’s chest.

The sight of Éomer’s mouth lewd and wet, head thrown back in utter abandon, was enough to tip Faramir over the edge. With a strangled cry his hips jerked up off the ground, driving into Éomer as he came.

***

They lay together on the floor for a time, hips and shoulders flush against each other. Éomer toyed idly with Faramir’s hair, glancing askance at him every so often as if to assure himself that Faramir was real.

It was Faramir that broke the silence. “This changes nothing,” he spoke into the dark of the tent.

Éomer pulled himself up on one arm to regard Faramir with an incredulous expression. “This changes everything.”

Faramir sighed. “You are my enemy, I am yours. This—” he gestured at their bodies “—does not change the fact that outside this tent, we are at war.”

Éomer looked like he wanted to argue, but then sighed as if he had thought better of it. “Then stay inside this tent a little longer,” he said, laying his head back down in the crook of Faramir’s neck. “Lie beside me tonight. I am not about to pen my soulmate out like a horse.”

The rest of the night had a dreamy unreality to it, like something out of a fairy story. Éomer conjured up a wet rag and knelt by Faramir’s side, lovingly washing the sweat and seed from his body until, for the first time in days, Faramir felt clean.

They did not speak: everything was reduced to glances and smiles and quick kisses, all of it cast golden by the light of the lantern. When it guttered low, they moved to Éomer’s cot, curling around each other, chest to chest, so that they could hear each other’s hearts beating in the dark.

Faramir nestled his head just below Éomer’s chin and stared into the darkness of the tent, waiting for Éomer’s breathing to slow into even rhythm of sleep.

He let himself savor this: the pleasant ache in his body, the warmth of Éomer beside him, the comforting weight of Éomer’s legs tangled with his own. He held the feeling of bone-deep contentment in his mind and resolved it to memory, like a pressed flower between the pages of a book.

From beside him, gentle snores. He counted to ten, then twenty.

Once he was sure Éomer would not wake, he slipped from the bed, dressed in darkness, and made his way out of the tent.

He did not look back.

***

He stole a horse on the edge of the camp, and he was off.

The first moments were pure terror: at any moment he expected the shout of a sentry, the whizz of an arrow, pain, darkness. But there was nothing save for the whisper of the steppe grass around him and the moonlight beating down from overhead. As his horse’s hooves ate up the ground beneath him, the tents of the Rohirrim grew smaller and smaller on the horizon, until he was utterly alone.

They had marched for days, but it had been a slow march, with prisoners and camp followers walking alongside the horses

Now he rode, with the stars to guide him and the terror that he would be followed

Éomer would send riders after him, he had no doubt. How much of a head start did he have? Had Éomer woken moments after he slipped away? Or would his absence only be discovered in morning.

He had left the brace behind in Éomer’s bed, and so the marks on his arm were clear under the moonlight.

***

He rode and he rode and he rode, caring only for the limits of the horse’s endurance and nothing for his own. He slept in fits in the saddle, fingers knotted in the horse’s mane.

On the morning of the third day, wracked with hunger and sick with thirst, he raised his head and saw, with bleary eyes, the white city rising up from the horizon.

***

They opened the gates for him, and there was much shouting and carrying on. A stretcher materialized in short order, and he found himself laid out on it as members of the watch carried him up through the city’s rings to the houses of healing. The sky was very blue above him, and the clouds were very white.

Éomer was under that same sky. What was he doing? Was he thinking of Faramir? It hurt to remember the way Éomer had looked at him in wonder. It hurt to imagine his anger at waking to an empty bed. His rage. His disappointment.

The sky above him turned into a stone ceiling, and his stretcher morphed into a bed. There were people in the room feeling at his forehead, exclaiming at the rope-burns on his wrists, murmuring to each other in a cacophony of voices. The voices and hands all blurred together, and he felt quite content to ignore them until one voice in particular separated itself from the din.

“—ramir! Faramir! Little Brother—”

There were hands cradling his head, lips kissing his brow, and when he opened his eyes it was to see Boromir looking down at him like he was a precious thing.

“Boromir,” he croaked, lifting an unsteady hand to cup the side of his brother’s face.

“You’re safe now,” Boromir said, his voice on the verge of breaking. “You’re home now.”

“I am,” he said. And burst into tears.

***

He rested. He convalesced. Boromir visited every day, and Denethor not at all.

He gained his strength back day by day, until he could leave his sickbed and walk through the gardens of the houses of healing without growing short of breath. But even as his body healed, it felt as if there was a sickness in him that the healers couldn’t touch. Light seemed dimmer. Food tasted like nothing. He spent long hours on the ramparts, staring into the north.

It was on one such morning that Boromir appeared at his side. They stood in silence for a long moment, until Boromir broke the quiet with a deep sigh. “Would it help to speak of it?”

In the distance the clouds curled pale and white, moved by a faraway wind. Beyond the horizon the steppe grasses would be dancing in the breeze. He chose his words carefully. “I would not know what to say.”

“Try,” said Boromir, “and I will listen.”

“Words will not change what happened.”

“But they may take away the sting.” The tenderness and helplessness in Boromir’s voice was enough to undo him. “Please, tell me. I will not interrupt you.”

He took a shaky breath. “There was—there was a horseman.”

Boromir looked as though there were a million questions he wanted to ask, but true to his word he kept silent.

Faramir forced his breathing to even out. Why was this so difficult to put into words? “He— he brought me to his tent. Often. Every night.”

A shaky breath. “He hurt you.”

If only that was it. If only the wound in him was something so simple as a wound of the flesh. Perhaps then he would not be ashamed to speak of it. “He was… not cruel to me.”

Silence. And then— “What,” Boromir bit out, as if restraining himself, “Did he do?”

Faramir could not meet his brother’s eyes. “He… I… I cannot—“

Boromir’s hands on the rampart were white-knuckled. “You do not have to answer if you do not wish to, but I must ask. Did he make you lie with him?”

Faramir dropped his eyes. “He did not… force me.”

Hissing, Boromir roiled beside him. “I will kill him. I will find him and kill him—”

“No! I mean—he did not make me—"

“Then what—"

The truth ripped itself out of him. “He is my soulmate!” he shouted, the bitter truth of it echoing off the walls of the citadel. “My soulmate is one of the enemy.”

When he dared to look up Boromir was staring at him, wide-eyed. “Your soul mate is a horselord?” And then, quieter: “All this time?”

“Soulmates do not change.” He could not keep the bitterness from his voice. “We are stuck with them.”

Boromir looked as though he were reevaluating several things at once. “But, father—"

Faramir laughed. “Why do you think he looks at me the way he does?”

He waited for Boromir to decry him a traitor, to push him away. And so he was surprised when Boromir abruptly enfolded him in a fierce hug, face buried in the crook of his neck, hands cradling the back of his head. “This changes nothing,” he whispered fiercely. “You are my brother, now and to the end of the world. And I will love you, no matter if your soulmate is a horse lord, no matter if your soulmate were the prince of the Rohirrim himself.”

***

Things got better after that, as if telling Boromir the truth had leached some of the poison from his soul. He was able to eat properly and sleep soundly once more, and was on his way to the stables for the first time since his return when he was intercepted by a member of his father’s guard. “Your lord father wishes you to attend him in the hall,” the man said.

Faramir turned back towards the citadel despite his misgivings. The memory of his last audience with his father hung heavy in his heart. He would not survive another suicide-charge on Osgiliath.

But when he arrived, it was to see Boromir already standing before the steward’s throne, glaring fiercely up at their father.

“Ah, Faramir,” Denethor said, with what sounded suspiciously like relief in his voice. Faramir found himself wondering what had transpired between them before he had arrived. “I was just informing your brother: we have received word from the Riddermark. It seems the horselords wish to negotiate a peace.”

“A peace?” he said. Was he dreaming? It made no sense: with the taking of Osgiliath Rohan was a stone’s throw away from the capital; they were undeniably winning the war. Why negotiate now? Why not press their advantage? What had changed?

“We will receive them,” Denethor proclaimed, and Faramir gleaned from his tone that his father was similarly baffled by this turn of events. “They are sending their crown prince to negotiate.” He turned to glower at Boromir. “You will not provoke him!”

The two of them scowled at each other as Faramir stood there somewhat awkwardly, trying to puzzle out the horsemen’s game. Was this a trick? A feint?

Boromir seemed to have the same suspicions. “I’ll not provoke them,” he said with ill grace. “But when they play us false I will be ready for it.”

***

The delegation from Rohan arrived a mere week later. The sudden announcement of the visit had driven the servants almost to tears; rooms had to be prepared, dinners planned, and seating charts argued over for hours on end. A suckling pig was sourced two days before their planned arrival, and as Faramir moved his things from the houses of healing to his old chambers on the morning of their arrival he overheard the chamberlain and the master of linens engaged in a fierce debate regarding the draperies in the guest quarters as they hurried down the corridor.

At the appointed time, Faramir dressed in all his finery and made his way to the Great Hall. He stood to the left of his father’s throne, and Boromir to the right. The doors creaked open. There were footfalls on the marble, the clank of armor, the murmur of the courtiers. Despite himself, Faramir looked up.

And there, resplendent in gleaming armor and emerald velvet, stood Éomer. Prince of Rohan.

He found he could not meet Éomer’s eyes; he was too afraid of what he might see there. He could not bring himself to look and see betrayal. To see pain. To see hatred.

He fixated on other things: the dip of his waist, where Faramir had gripped bruises into the skin while Éomer rode him. His hands, so lovely and sure of themselves. His left forearm, where underneath the polished vambrace Faramir’s own name was hiding.

It was too much. As soon as all of the official introductions were complete and servers began to circulate with goblets of spiced wine, he bowed stiffly in Éomer’s general direction and fled the room.

Boromir was hot on his heels. “Brother, what troubles you?”

After he made sure that the hall was empty of any bystanders, Faramir let out a laugh tinged with hysteria. “When you said it didn’t matter if my soulmate were the prince of the horselords himself—"

Boromir’s eyes widened. Glancing back at the hall, he swore softly. “If you ask it of me, I will challenge him to a duel. I would kill him for you.”

Faramir shuddered. “No. I do not want that.” But the truth was, Faramir had no idea what he wanted.

***

Sleep eluded him that night. He tossed and turned and bunched his hands in his blankets, all to no avail. Finally he gave up and left his bed, swaddling himself in a dressing gown before making for the door. It was no use trying to avoid Éomer. He had to face him, or he would never be at peace.

The delegation from Rohan was housed in an old wing of the Citadel; Faramir resorted to the old passages he had haunted as a child to avoid courtiers. And if they saw him, well, let them! More likely they would think him on some late night assignation than the truth!

The doors of Éomer’s chambers were guarded by two stony faced soldiers. They tensed when he drew near, no doubt expecting some treachery. He held up his empty hands. “I bear lord Éomer no ill will.”

The guards glanced at each other. “Why, then, have you come?”

He did his best to stand tall and project a regal mien, despite his dressing robe and the late hour. “My name is Faramir, son of the Steward. I wish to speak with your master.”

A pause. “He told us we were to admit you, if you came,” the guard on the right said, though it sounded as if he had misgivings about his master’s order.

Faramir nodded stiffly and swept past them into the darkened chambers beyond.

He almost turned around when he saw Éomer. He sat at a desk on the far side of the room, a single candle guttering beside him as he read from a ledger. His back was turned; it would be so easy to turn tail and tiptoe back to bed…

“Éomer,” he croaked. He would not run again.

Éomer jerked in his chair and spun around to face him. “Faramir?”

He found he could not meet Éomer’s eyes. He fixed his gaze on a point just above Éomer’s head, and tried to remember what it was he had wanted to say.

Across from him, Éomer took a breath. “Faramir—"

“I will not apologize,” he blurted out. “I did what I did to save my people from destruction, though it hurt my heart to do so.” He took a deep breath. “You may hate me, and you have every right to do so. Only… I would ask that you didn’t. if you can find the mercy in your heart, I would ask you to forgive me. For I find that I cannot bear the thought of you hating me.”

There. He had said his piece. The room relapsed into silence.

“Faramir,” Éomer said softly. “Look at me.”

It was the hardest thing to do. He braced himself for ire and derision and hesitantly edged his eyes upwards. But there was no hate, only a wistful sadness. “Faramir,” Éomer said, “I knew you would be gone when I woke.”

Faramir blinked. “You… knew?”

“When I woke to find you gone, it was as if my heart had been rent in two. But it was not a surprise. You are like a wild horse with that lovely mane of yours.” There was an ache in his voice. “To keep you against your will, to pen you— it would have been worse than treachery. I had to let you go.” He offered Faramir a sad smile. “I will not pretend I did not weep when I found you had gone. It felt like a limb had been severed from my body, so dire was my pain. But,” he said, and his voice hardened, “do not say that I hate you, for I do not. I believe I never could.”

Faramir was reeling. It was too much to process, and so he blurted out the first question that came to mind. “But then—why are you here?”

“On the morrow I had thought to make a trade: peace, and the return of Osgilliath as a dowry in exchange for your hand in marriage.” Suddenly, he cried out in frustration and tore a hand through his hair. “But now I see that this would be penning you still. I will not have you wed to me out of duty.”

There was a peculiar lightness in Faramir’s chest. He prodded it, tasted the flavor of it, and found to his surprise that it was joy. That there could be peace. That Éomer did not hate him. That this was something he could have.

Éomer spoke of penning him, had imagined Éomer would agree to a betrothal out of sacrifice and duty. But to the contrary: he found that this was a bargain he _wanted_ to make.

Emboldened, he stepped closer. He reached out and let his fingers rest just below Éomer’s chin, gently forcing his head up.

Éomer stared up at him, eyes wide in the dark. “Faramir,” he whispered, voice rough, “please: do not do this out of duty.”

“I don’t,” he answered, and drew Éomer’s head up to his own.


End file.
